Mary Anning (1799 – 1847)

In 1811, Mary Anning’s brother spotted what he thought was a crocodile skeleton in a seaside cliff near the family’s Lyme Regis, England, home. He charged his 11-year-old sister with its recovery, and she eventually dug out a skull and 60 vertebrae, selling them to a private collector for £23. This find was no croc, though, and was eventually named Ichthyosaurus, the “fish-lizard.” Thus began Anning’s long career as a fossil hunter. In addition to ichthyosaurs, she found long-necked plesiosaurs, a pterodactyl and hundreds, possibly thousands, of other fossils that helped scientists to draw a picture of the marine world 200 million to 140 million years ago during the Jurassic. She had little formal education and so taught herself anatomy, geology, paleontology and scientific illustration. Scientists of the time traveled from as far away as New York City to Lyme Regis to consult and hunt for fossils with Anning. - source: Smithsonian magazine

Known for
Fossil collector

Paleontology

Fossil shop in Lyme Regis

Find more
(LOTS of material, here's some)

Wikipedia

The Fossil Hunter, biography by Shelley Emling

Works including her
Ammonite, film in production. Guardian story, with some history

Curiosity (2010) by Joan Thomas, historical fiction focusing on Mary Anning and Henry de la Beche

Remarkable Creatures (2009) by Tracy Chevalier, historical fiction in which Mary Anning and her colleague and friend, Elizabeth Philpot, are the main characters

Blue Lias, or the Fish Lizard's Whore (2007), a solo play by Claudia Stevens with music by Allen Shearer depicting Anning in later life.

(mention) The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969) by John Fowles, who was critical of the fact that no British scientist had named a species after her in her lifetime.